A Great Sadness

My heart is heavy. Today I learned that a very close friend of a close friend of mine took her own life. She was a wife and mother of three children, and was deeply depressed. A couple of weeks ago she just drove away from it all. Yesterday her body was found in a very remote area. Out of respect for her family, whom I've known since my freshman year in college and her friends, I'm not going to put anything else here about her death. The details aren't important. What is important is that a bright, beautiful energetic young woman has slowly and steadily been withering on the inside.

Often when we hear of stories like this, we tend to ask, "why?" I know it's the first thing that Stephen asked when I told him. The look on his face was one of sadness - for her husband, for her children - and confusion. Why would a woman who seemingly has it all - a beautiful family, money, traveling the world, a vacation home, an upbringing in a prominent family - want to end her life? There are no words that can adequately explain what must lead a mother to the point of leaving her children. It is a sign of the deepness of the depression, of the brutal way that it can take over a person's life; twisting their thoughts, adding sadness even to goodness and worst of all, driving a person to hopelessness. This is what despair is. It is the feeling of utter hopelessness.

It is not uncommon - in fact it is all too common in our society - to think that a person should be able to pull themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps. If you are someone who thinks this, then I'm sorry. For if you think this and you've felt the despair that depression can bring, then you know what it is to feel hopeless. If you think this and you've never felt nudged by the dark hand of depression, be thankful. We know too much now, science has shown us too much about how the human brain works, to excuse our perpetuation of the myth that someone can talk themselves out of depression. And I'm sorry, but no self-help book is going to help someone out of the situation that this beautiful soul, this woman who couldn't find her way out of the fog of hopelessness, was in.

My friend tells me that some people are blogging on the local newspaper's website, and saying some pretty insensitive things about a mother who could "be so selfish" and leave her children. I would not wish depression on any human being. Anyone who has walked its lonely path for even one day knows that there is nothing worse than not knowing why you feel the way you feel. I hope a person who considers it trivial or a luxury never has to feel its effects. My hope is that we will wake up and start taking this sort of thing seriously; that we will watch out for those we know and love; that we will dare to say something, to offer a hand. I'm thankful to the friends who did so for me almost 15 years ago.

The eight-year old daughter of this woman told my friend that she feels like part of her heart "broke off". Please pray for her and her brother and sister and father, and pray for all mothers who find themselves in a similar situation. It's more common than we like to think. Pray for those suffering from depression, and reach out to them. It's a mental illness, not a character flaw.